Trigger warning: Sexual violence/rape.
A survivor of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has spoken out about her 18 months of abuse.
Juliette Bryant was 20 years old when she claims Epstein promised to help her become a model.
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In BBC documentary series House of Maxwell – a title that refers to Epstein's former partner and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell – Bryant alleges that Epstein's sex-trafficking ring was being run like 'a factory' by the former socialite.
Bryant has claimed that 'at least' 60 other girls were on the Caribbean island she was flown to from her home in South Africa.
Bryant alleges she was forced to have sex with Epstein up to three times a day, and couldn't turn him down because of the threats he made against her resulting in her being 'petrified', The Mirror reports.
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She said: “He fed off the terror. There was something about the energy of a girl being scared that he liked.
"Ghislaine was running the girls and would tell us when we had to go to his bedroom. You couldn’t say no, there was just no option.
“You didn’t want to make them angry, it would have been very, very scary. No one even tried to stand up against them."
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In the documentary, Bryant explains how she 'just checked out of [her] body' when in Epstein's 'pitch dark and ice cold' bedroom.
"[I] let him do what he wanted because I didn’t know what else to do. I tried to escape this room in my mind, tried to pretend it wasn’t happening," she said.
Bryant claims that Epstein 'said that he had [her] family's name on a list', and threatened that 'a woman had accused him of rape and he'd planted drugs in her apartment and had her sent to prison', which is why she went back to him.
She reflected: "No one disobeyed Epstein."
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Epstein was found dead in his cell in August 2019. He was being held without bail pending trial of child sex-trafficking charges. His death was ruled as suicide, however, Maxwell's brother claimed that his sister thought Epstein had been murdered.
In December 2021, Maxwell was found guilty of five out of six sex trafficking charges.
Despite two of the juror's revelations that they'd experienced sexual assault themselves – throwing doubt over the conviction and prompting Maxwell's lawyers to file for a retrial – the former socialite's sentencing date has been set for 28 June, 2022.
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If you have been affected by any of the issues in this article and wish to speak to someone in confidence, contact The Survivor’s Trust for free on 08088 010 818, or through their website thesurvivorstrust.org
If you have been affected by any of the issues in this article and wish to speak to someone in confidence, contact the Rape Crisis England and Wales helpline on 0808 802 9999 between 12pm–2.30pm and 7pm– 9.30pm every day. Alternatively, you can contact Victim Support free on 08 08 16 89 111 available 24/7, every day of the year, including Christmas
Male Survivors Partnership is available to support adult male survivors of sexual abuse and rape. You can contact the organisation on their website or on their free helpline 0808 800 5005, open 9am–5pm Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays; 8am–8pm Tuesdays and Thursdays; 10am–2pm Saturdays
Topics: Jeffrey Epstein, no-article-matching, Prince Andrew
Poppy Bilderbeck